Slicing Motion Against the Throat with a Finger
With so much for saying, where should I start? Here: I have drawn a square on the napkin over itself again and again with my pen to imagine a container in which to say.
The square by my hand is overlapping and imprecise like a memory, like: arriving to a party, the hostess welcomed us with water and during a game of gesture and guessing, we were quick to know the posture for teapot but not anyone had it easy acting out treason or tooth decay. A woman made the slicing motion against her throat with a finger. Someone said: Diamond necklace! Another said: Slice of life! Violence was never actualized, though you could argue if you have strong feelings about a stew that is not well salted. By night’s end I was sitting so long that I checked for an egg under me. Walking home in the night I was so hungry, I touched red berries hanging from a bush and wished for the clock to race forward all the way to grape season. My snack in the night was fingers in mayo. Or maybe peanut butter. I shrug now, drawing the square. Such is the untrusted nature of recollection and I will need to accept it or else I will be against Everything. I’d much rather live in accordance to maths which approach so close to certain. Put HAPPY on the stone of my tomb if I should die so next to Knowing. Right now, I look behind just to know that there is no one. That the wall is exactly where I left it.
The square on my napkin is starting to fill itself—as overgrown and as wild as I am when I stand too near to bees or when I imagine the party hostess is my wife, that we share the walk-in closet and collared blouses. We share a body type but for my breasts which are notably petite. We share secrets and dinner but must take turns with the tub which is too small for the two of us to occupy at one time—I checked during the party, after a pee, sitting in the bath and first crossing my arms, closing my eyes, and imagining that I was lying peaceful in a place of final rest before resurrecting upright, running my hands up and down my arms as though they were wet and covered with soap, making myself clean of the day, a penance for morbid tendencies of mind and for whatever trail of chaos was made in my wake, then saying: you’re next, my baby, letting the cold water drain and refilling with warm.
The pen goes long, violating the square’s borders and I must bring it back to center, making tight lines with stiff fingers, the littlest square I can assemble. When I am sitting I make myself smaller and smaller, holding myself by my middle. Is it that I am shy? No question. Even in the presence of only (I’m checking behind) the wall, the shoulders want to meet the knees. My quiet was once described to me: painful. Someone, at the party, asked if my stomach hurt. It did not but I said yes and I excused myself back to the bathroom for so long a while to give everyone the pleasure of guessing what horrible happening was taking place in there and giving thanks to goodness that they were not the ones afflicted. The sweeter my time was taken, the more frightened were those who had already eaten the stew: was it too late for us all, the hungry? Tell me, you: who doesn’t suffer the anxiety of a contaminated food? Every bite is the roll of dice. A good life is a one with little mystery. Mine? Not so good.
When the hostess came knocking I had already swabbed my ears, swallowed a pill from a labelless bottle, uncovered the source of a smell I named Mister with a Green-Rimmed Hat. Fine Suede the candle label said. I had lit the wick with a found match, opened the window to make eyes at the half-moon, and set the candle on the ledge to let the wind blow out the flame. I made a wish for the courage of easy conversation. I had unfolded and re-folded a hand towel that was embroidered with the family’s name. The hostess’s knock came as I was trying on the family’s name in the place of my own. I had nearly said the name out loud to cleanse the palate of myself.
Are you okay? said the hostess.
I unlocked the door and stepped out nodding the affirmative. Yes, I thought, darling.
You’re not allergic to dairy are you? she said.
Only bees, I said. And bullshit, I said. Ha ha, I said—the only one.
I followed the hostess to the front room where the group had moved on to choreographing a dance. Each person contributed a move of their own. There was a line in the song that moved me. It was about going from one place to another and then back home. I had the excuse of a bad belly to sit this activity out. Poor Thing, they named me. The song played 7 times and I felt Poor only in Silence. I felt Poor only in Companion when the suggestion was made to couple and slow dance during a brief half-speed interlude. They were even in number without me. I named them all the Poor Things of Coordination.
I’m tapping my feet now, seated, trying to remember if they squat-clap-clapped after a spin to the right or to the left. The square and its curved sides are now buried somewhere beneath a line map of the choreography. The square is no longer. No evidence of its ever existing. Yet, it was there. I saw it. I made it. Traces go buried, geometries overlapped by oblongs, asymmetries. Who have I been? I forget, after an overlap, after a breaking of bounds and leaking out a little.
Sometimes I lift the pen from the napkin to tap the glass of drink hard with the tip to no effect. Condensation makes the napkin go soft and not only is there no more square but no more napkin. Holes in the napkin are like holes in a memory like______, like: The ____ is so far from us here, I said with no greater thought in my head to the people wiping torn bread on beige dipping sauce. My wish had not been granted. By luck the hostess announced: It’s time! and we moved outside to watch the celestial event that was happening its once in every long, long while. The event happened exactly as they said it would on the television. I wished upon it for a surprise. Our small applause would take lightyears to reach its entertainer. How far dead we’d all be by then:
They Who Clapped, Pointlessly.
Who Blotted Dark Spills on the Light Furniture.
Who Masked Tension, Thinly.
Who Resolved, Kissing.
Who Swung Hard at the Piñata, Empty.